Riftbound Radiance Tier List: Riven Leads the Early Meta

TL;DR: RAD-149RAD-149Shop on TCGplayer Riven is S tier: 13 players went 37-24-1 (61%) and she won the biggest Radiance event so far, 9-0-1. Yasuo, Kennen and Kai'Sa are A tier, VEN-139VEN-139Shop on TCGplayer Akali is B. Of the nine new Legends, only Riven has a winning record. We'll redo this list after the first large event played since release.

Image credit: Riot Games via the official Riftbound card gallery (RAD-149, OGN-259, OGN-247, VEN-155).

The four events behind this early read

Haven and Showdown 5 were online. At Haven, 23 of the 50 players have no public list, so we don't know their Legends and left them out. Fast Cup Radiance #2 publishes placings only, and riftbound.gg tags it as a Vendetta event, so it isn't in the records below; we mention its placings where they add something. Of the 110 public lists we counted, 103 ran at least one Radiance card.

The Riftbound Radiance tier list

Match win % leaves draws out. Our tiers: S is 10 or more players, a win rate of 58% or better and an event win. A is 10 or more players with a winning record. B is a winning record on fewer than 10 players. C is four or more players and a losing record at 40% or better. D is below 40%. Legends with three players or fewer aren't ranked.

Image credit: Shonen TCG chart from riftbound.gg public standings, Haven, Showdown 5 and Club9, October 11 to 23, 2026.

S tier: Riven

Riven's Legend ability is one line: "Units you play to battlefields you control enter ready." She's Calm/Chaos, and she has the best record of any Legend with 10 or more players. Sithis won Showdown 5 with her at 9-0-1, and three more Riven players made that Top 16. On release day, four of the nine players at Club9 Riftbound Clash #3 brought Riven and finished 1st, 2nd, 4th and 8th.

The lists agree with each other. All 13 ran Riven, Broken Blade and RAD-150RAD-150Shop on TCGplayer Blade of the Exile, 12 ran RAD-105RAD-105Shop on TCGplayer Reckless Innovator and Bedeviling Stranger, and 11 ran Ki Burst. riftbound.gg's own Day 1 report, published October 22, says "Riven - The Exile is the undisputed best performer." Our numbers back that up, with one caveat: five of the nine Showdown 5 Riven players finished 48th or lower. The deck can lose, and the Riven deck guide covers the winning list card by card.

A tier: Yasuo, Kennen and Kai'Sa

Yasuo is the quiet one. All 12 Yasuo players were at Showdown 5, where they went 39-27-6 and took 3rd, 5th and 6th. Every Yasuo list ran RAD-157RAD-157Shop on TCGplayer Bandle Scouts' Academy, and none ran any other Radiance card. In other words, Yasuo is the Vendetta deck plus one Battlefield. It shares Calm/Chaos with Riven, so a Riven player who wants a backup knows the cards already.

Kennen was the most played Legend, and its results split by event. At Haven on October 11, six Kennen players went 22-10 and flolcsc won the event 6-0; none of the 27 Haven players with a public list ran Riven. At Showdown 5, where nine players brought Riven, 14 Kennen players went 26-32-2 and the best finished 13th. Kennen also won Fast Cup Radiance #2. All 20 Kennen lists ran RAD-129RAD-129Shop on TCGplayer Trifarian Captain, which riftbound.gg credits with bringing Nocturne back into the deck. We can't show Kennen-vs-Riven games from this data, but the split is the pattern we'd test first. The Kennen deck guide has the Vendetta build this one grew from.

Kai'Sa finished 2nd at Showdown 5 (YBE piorro, 7-2-1) and went 36-31-1 overall. Every Kai'Sa list ran RAD-003RAD-003Shop on TCGplayer Bilgewater Tracker, 10 of 13 ran The Empyrean and 8 ran Lost to the Sands. riftbound.gg's report pitches Kai'Sa as the answer to Riven, "the best legend in order to remove units sitting at a battlefield through spells." On r/RiftboundTCG, u/RunningCatDog explained the Tracker pick: "Bilgewater tracker is really good. Helps you get rid of the 4 might units with falling star a breakpoint Kai'Sa used to struggle with."

B tier: Akali

Four Akali players went 15-12-2 at Showdown 5 and finished 4th and 7th. That's a good record on a small sample. Their lists ran almost nothing from Radiance, three single cards across four lists, and riftbound.gg notes Akali is playing "the same deck she used in Vendetta." If you own the Akali deck, you don't need to buy anything to play it this month.

C and D tier, and the new Legends that didn't show up

Rengar, LeBlanc and Irelia all had losing records, but two of them had a good day somewhere. Irelia finished 2nd at Fast Cup Radiance #2 and 3rd at Club9; Rengar took 4th and 5th at Fast Cup. None of the three made a Top 8 at the two bigger events.

Mordekaiser is the only new Legend besides Riven with more than two players, and it went 6-14-1. All six lists ran Trifarian Captain, Mordekaiser, Dominating and Realm of Death. The best finish was 21st of 50 at Haven.

The other new Legends barely appeared: Ekko two players (5-5), Evelynn two (3-5), Ziggs two (0-5), K'Sante one (1-4), Jarvan IV one (0-2). Orianna and Seraphine had no players in the events with records; one Orianna player finished 6th at Fast Cup. Radiance added nine new Legends (our Radiance Legends list has all of them), and in these four events only one is winning.

What could move this list

Three things. First, sample size: these are 110 players, and a single 74-player online event decides much of the order. Second, the counter-pick: if Kai'Sa keeps beating Riven, Riven players will adjust, and riftbound.gg's report says some have already started to put Baron Nashor or Akali, Silent in their side deck. Third, the in-person season: the same report looks ahead to the upcoming Regional Championships, and nothing above comes from one.

For now, riftbound.gg's tier list page still shows the Vendetta list, last updated October 9, and our own Riftbound meta tier list covers Vendetta too. This page is the Radiance one.

A pre-release tier list to compare

Zelonius and TheManLand ranked the Legends before the set came out, in a video uploaded October 13. It has a chapter per Legend it ranks (Kai'Sa at 26:16, Kennen at 42:40, Yasuo at 1:08:52), so you can check their calls against the results above.

Our take

We'd play Riven if you want the best odds at your next event and can find the Blade of the Exile copies. We'd pick Kai'Sa if your store already has three Riven players, because it's the deck built to beat her, and it took 2nd at the biggest event. Kennen won two of the four events, but we'd hold off on calling it the best deck until it wins a room that has Riven in it. Yasuo and Akali are the budget answers: you can play both with almost nothing from Radiance.

Treat this list as a first look. Four events, one of them only nine players, can't settle a format. We'll redo the numbers once the first large event since release posts its standings. For the cards that showed up in these lists, see Radiance best cards, and new players can start with the Riftbound guide.

How we checked this: on October 24, 2026 we pulled every event on riftbound.gg tagged Radiance or named after it (October 11 to 23), then the standings with match records and each public decklist, and counted Legends, records and Radiance cards with our script (scripts/sims/riftbound-radiance-tier-list.py, one run, no randomness). Legend names, Domains and card text are from Riot's official card gallery; the release date and Legend count from Riot's Radiance overview. Last reviewed: October 24, 2026.

References

• Haven Online Challenger Series #5 (Radiance Preview), NovaRiftbound's $2,000 Online Showdown 5, Fast Cup Radiance #2 and Club9 Riftbound Clash #3 on riftbound.gg: dates, players, standings and lists, checked October 24, 2026.
• Official Riftbound card gallery: Legend names, Domains, card text and images.
• The Radiance Overview, Riot: release date and the nine new Legends.
• Radiance Day 1 Best Decks & Meta Report, riftbound.gg, October 22, 2026.
• Riftbound tier list, riftbound.gg, updated October 9, 2026.